Order, order less – MPs told to sober up

Tory MP and former police surgeon Sarah Wollaston tells politicians to set an example by cutting down their alcohol consumption while at work

Sarah Wollaston says Westminster has too much of a drinking culture (Paul Vicente)

As a police surgeon, Sarah Wollaston saw at first hand the human cost of
alcoholic excess and, after entering parliament at the last election, she
hoped she could help to bring about a change in Britain’s binge culture. The
lurid headlines wrongly claiming she had said MPs were too drunk to vote
were, however, not quite what she had in mind.

At her party’s conference in Manchester, the Tory MP did raise the issue of
excessive drinking and she admits the problem also exists in Westminster.

“It’s not just the bars. The problem we have is the number of receptions
throughout the day where the alcohol is free,” she said. “I don’t think my
colleagues are drunks. I am saying there is a drinking culture that has
surprised me. You wouldn’t see a surgeon that had a bottle of wine at
lunchtime carrying out surgery.”